American Superconductor Corporation (AMSC): what the price assumes

In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $29.80, American Superconductor Corporation (AMSC) is priced for today's economics sustained for ~30.8 years. boothcheck publishes no house fair value, target price, or buy/sell rating; individual model outputs and user-controlled scenarios are analytical inputs, not Boothcheck targets. Narrative composed 2026-07-25.

Generated: 2026-09-07 · Exported: 2026-09-09 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/AMSC

Headline

FieldValue
TickerAMSC
CompanyAmerican Superconductor Corporation
Sector / IndustryIndustrials
Current price$29.80/sh
CompositionGrid - North America 58% / Grid - South America 8% / Grid - Asia Pacific 14% / Grid - EMEA 4% / Wind - North America 0% / Wind - South America 0% / Wind - Asia Pacific 16% / Wind - EMEA 0%

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

FieldValue
Inversion basiswhole-company
Operating margin (value-band context)14.3%
Operating margin today4.9%
Margin expansion (value-band)+9.4pp
Must persist for30.8y
Multiple paid84x operating income

The operating-margin figure is value-band context at year 5: derived from the framework's value band, a separate calculation — not part of the priced-in solve.

Solve inputs: computed at a 15% cost of capital; growth searched up to the 25% self-funding ceiling.

How unusual the bet is: n/a

ReferenceValue
cohort percentile (of 225 peers)98

Valuation X-Ray

The price is supported by asset-based and relative-multiple and growth-DCF value, while earnings-power lands below the price. A value/asset-supported name, not a pure growth bet.

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

FamilyMedian price/FVModelsReads
Asset0.98x5justifies
Earnings2.75x4expensive
Relative0.81x5justifies
Growth0.87x3justifies

Families that justify the price: Asset, Relative, Growth Families that call it expensive: Earnings

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 9.1%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=17)

ModelFamilyFVPrice/FVApplicableMethodology
DCF Perpetual GrowthGrowth$25.731.16xyesFCF base $0.0B, growth 25% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 9.1%, 7yr projection
DCF Exit MultipleGrowth$34.110.87xyesExit EV/EBITDA: 53.4x / 55.4x / 57.4x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 7yr
Relative ValuationRelative$37.670.79xyesP/E 18x (static sector reference · 2026-04), scenarios: 14.4x / 18.0x / 21.6x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 25.01x
Simple DDMGrowth——no—
Two-Stage DDMGrowth——no—
Simple Excess ReturnAsset$30.480.98xyesBV/sh $11.82, ROE (TTM) 23.9%, ke 9.3%
Two-Stage Excess ReturnAsset$48.980.61xyes5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3%
Discounted Future Market CapGrowth$38.620.77xyesRev $0.3B, growth 25% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 3.6x / 4.5x / 5.4x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 12x)
Peter Lynch Fair ValueRelative$36.960.81xyesEPS $3.08, growth 2% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=5.29 (Overvalued)
Margin TrajectoryGrowth——no—
Earnings Power ValueEarnings——no—
Residual IncomeAsset$44.640.67xyesBV $11.82 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 23.9% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 8.8%/yr
Graham NumberAsset$28.621.04xyes√(22.5 × EPS $3.08 × BVPS $11.82) — Graham's conservative floor
EV/EBITDA RelativeRelative$7.933.76xyesEBITDA $0.02B × sector EV/EBITDA 12.0x
FCF YieldEarnings$6.464.61xyesFCF $20.5M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity
SBC-Adj FCF YieldEarnings$2.7510.84xyesSBC-adj FCF $0.00B (FCF $0.02B − SBC $0.02B) capitalized at Kₑ
Ben Graham FormulaEarnings$99.380.30xyesEPS $3.08 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%)
ROIC-Justified P/BAsset$2.3512.68xyesBV $11.82 × (ROIC 1.8% / WACC 9.1%)
P/Sales SectorRelative$16.561.80xyesRevenue $0.32B × sector P/S 2.5x
PEG Fair ValueRelative$115.500.26xyesEPS $3.08 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 25.0% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 37.5x
Earnings YieldEarnings$33.300.89xyesEPS $3.08 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%)
Funds From Operations MultipleRelative——no—
Clinical Phase NPVGrowth——no—
MertonAsset——no—
V5 Mechanical———no—

Economic-Unit Decomposition (Sum Of The Parts)

The disclosed units share an operating capital structure; consolidated cash-flow lenses remain coherent and the unit split is explanatory.

UnitRoleValuation basisRevenueReported profitValue evidenceStatus
Gridoperatingenterprise$251.3m$8.5m operating-income$215.0m indicative EV subtotalindicative enterprise value
Windoperatingenterprise$47.8m$7.1m operating-income$182.0m indicative EV subtotalindicative enterprise value

No total common-equity value is stated. One or more material units lack a supported unit value. The displayed values are an indicative subtotal; consolidated debt and cash cannot be applied to a fraction of the company.

Solvency

FieldValue
Net cash$136.0m
Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax)-9.85x (net cash)
Net debt / operating income (pre-tax)-8.70x (net cash)
Share count CAGR (dilution)14.4%
Burning cashno

Interest expense is not separately reported in the latest filings, so interest coverage cannot be computed.

Bullet Takeaways

Bull Case

Take the case against first, because it is the loud one. At $30.47 the market is paying about 100 times what the company earned at its operating line last year, and the operating result behind that was a 4.8% margin. Put those two facts side by side and this looks like a share price that has walked away from its business.

The pivot is in what that thin operating result is made of. American Superconductor spent the last two years buying companies, and acquisition accounting is unkind in the year it happens: purchase-price amortization, transaction costs and integration expense all land above the operating line while the acquired revenue arrives in pieces. The Grid segment now carries the company, and it sells into two markets that behave nothing alike. One is utility and industrial power quality, the equipment that keeps voltage stable when a factory or a data center pulls a sudden load. The other is defense: the company sells critical shipyard infrastructure power solutions, ship power supplies and ship protection products to U.S. and allied Navies through our Grid business segment.

That second line is the part a retail investor is most likely to underrate. Navy shipyard power is a slow, credentialed, deeply unglamorous business with a customer who does not shop on price and does not switch suppliers casually. It sits alongside genuinely differentiated technology, including a cable system that combines very high-power handling capacity with fault current limiting characteristics built on the company's own superconducting wire. Neither is a large revenue line today. Both are the kind of position that is hard to assemble and hard to dislodge.

The transformer acquisition points at the same demand story from a different angle. Comtrafo is a Brazil-based manufacturer of large power and distribution transformers primarily for utility customers and also for industrial customers, bought into a market where large transformers have been in chronic short supply and lead times are measured in years. Buying capacity into a shortage is a defensible use of capital, and it is a different kind of bet than buying a growth story.

Two structural facts support all of this. The company holds $132.9 million of net cash and carries almost no borrowings, so the acquisition program was funded without adding leverage, and nothing on the balance sheet forces a decision in a bad year. The second fact is simpler. $18.3 million was what the business had left after paying for the year's capital spending, from a company that spent most of its history consuming cash rather than producing it. The bear is right that the multiple assumes a great deal. The bull answer is that the operating margin the multiple is measured against is the most likely thing in this whole picture to move, and it only has to move in one direction to change the arithmetic entirely.

Bear Case

Two things are baked into this price, and only one of them gets discussed. The first is that grid and defense demand keeps growing, which is the part everybody agrees on. The second is that American Superconductor eventually earns a utility-equipment margin on that demand rather than the one it earns now. The second assumption is where the fragility lives, and it is doing most of the work.

The arithmetic is unforgiving. At $30.47 the market pays roughly 100 times company-wide operating income. Growth alone cannot close a gap that size even at the fastest pace the business could fund from its own operations, so what the price actually requires is that pace sustained for something on the order of three decades. Of comparable fast-growing companies, only about 15% held such a pace even a decade. The multiple also sits at the very top of its peer distribution, above every comparable in the group.

Reported profitability is not the counter-argument it appears to be. The year to March 2026 shows a large net income, but the Company recorded a net $ 118.4 million non-cash income tax benefit during it, which is an accounting recognition of past losses rather than money the business earned. Strip it out and what remains is a $13.3 million operating result on roughly $299 million of revenue. Any per-share earnings figure, and any return-on-equity figure, computed off that year describes a tax event more than an operating one.

The margin comparison is where the gap becomes concrete. The electrical-equipment cohort is not short of profitable operators: HUBB, a peer with overlapping end markets, runs a 20.6% operating margin, and NVT, another peer in the group, runs 15.8%. American Superconductor runs a 4.8% operating margin. Closing even half of that distance would be a genuine achievement, and the price already assumes it happens and then persists for a generation. Meanwhile the order book that supports the growth half is not contractually firm, as the company states plainly: Our customers have the right under some circumstances and with some penalties or consequences to terminate, reduce or defer firm orders that we have in backlog.

Then there is the cost of getting here. The share count has grown about 13.2% a year over the last four years, which means a holder from four years ago owns a materially smaller slice of whatever this becomes. The balance sheet is genuinely clean, with more liquid assets than borrowings and no refinancing risk to speak of, and that does bound the downside. What it does not bound is the multiple. A company priced at 100 times operating profit does not need distress to lose most of its value. It only needs the market to shorten its assumed runway.

Valuation

The price embeds an assumption that is easier to state than to accept. At $30.47 the market pays roughly 100 times company-wide operating income, and because the growth rate in that arithmetic is already set at the ceiling the business could fund from its own operations, the only remaining variable is how long the pace holds. The answer the price gives is about 32 years. Comparable fast-growers have held that kind of pace even a decade only about 15% of the time.

That reading sits awkwardly next to how the individual valuation methods land, and the awkwardness is the most useful thing in this section. Methods that run off reported per-share earnings and reported return on equity all land at or above today's price. Methods that run off the cash the business actually generates land well below it, at roughly a third of where the price is. The two groups are effectively reading different companies, and the reason is a single line item.

The Company recorded a net $ 118.4 million non-cash income tax benefit in the year to March 2026. That figure is an accounting recognition of losses accumulated over many prior years, not money earned from selling equipment. It flows through net income, so it lifts every per-share earnings figure and every return-on-equity figure computed from that year, which in turn lifts every method anchored on them. The operating result for the same period was $13.3 million on roughly $299 million of revenue, a 4.8% operating margin. That is the number the business actually produced, and it is the one the demanding read is measured against.

Cohort position sharpens the point without needing much commentary. HUBB, a peer selling into overlapping utility end markets, earns a 20.6% operating margin. NVT, another peer in the group, earns 15.8%. AYI, a third peer, earns 14.5%. American Superconductor earns roughly a quarter to a third of what these operators earn per dollar of revenue while carrying a far higher multiple, which is the whole bet compressed into one comparison: the market is paying a premium for the margin it expects rather than the margin on the page.

The balance sheet removes one category of risk and leaves another intact. The company holds $132.9 million of net cash, borrowings are negligible, and it is not consuming cash, so nothing about solvency forces an outcome here. The dilution, though, is real and ongoing: the share count has grown about 13.2% a year over four years, which is how the acquisitions were paid for. Book value is $12.36 a share. Everything a buyer pays above that is a claim on results the company has not yet produced.

Catalysts

The fiscal year ended in March, and the results reported in June 2026 set the reference point for everything ahead: full-year revenue of $299.16 million, with the fourth quarter contributing $86.41 million of it. Alongside those numbers management guided fiscal first-quarter revenue above $85.0 million. That guidance is worth watching for what it does not say. Holding revenue roughly flat against a strong quarter is not the same as the acceleration the price assumes, so the informative line in the next report will be the operating margin rather than the top line.

The demand backdrop has strengthened for reasons outside the company's control, which is the useful kind of tailwind. Accelerating semiconductor and data-center construction pulls directly on the power-quality equipment the Grid segment sells, because large intermittent loads are precisely the problem that equipment exists to solve.

Sell-side coverage has been expanding with the story. Freedom Broker initiated coverage with a Buy rating on July 21, 2026. New coverage tends to follow price rather than lead it, so the initiation is better read as evidence that the name has arrived on more screens than as independent confirmation of the thesis.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Grid / Wind (reported)

Methodology Note

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.

Sources

AMSC fiscal 2026 results, June 2026 · market commentary on AMSC, July 2026 · Freedom Broker initiation, July 21, 2026

View the full interactive AMSC report on boothcheck